LLM APIs with permanent free tiers for text inference.

Contents

• Provider APIs
• Inference providers

Provider APIs

APIs run by the companies that train or fine-tune the models themselves.

Cohere 🇨🇦

Free "Trial" API key, no credit card. 1,000 API calls/month. Non-commercial use only.

Base URL: https://api.cohere.com/v2

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
Command A (111B)	256K	4K	Text	20 RPM
Command R+	128K	4K	Text	20 RPM
Command R	128K	4K	Text	20 RPM
Command R7B	128K	4K	Text	20 RPM
Embed 4	—	—	Embeddings (Text + Image)	2,000 inputs/min
Rerank 3.5	—	—	Reranking	10 RPM

Google Gemini 🇺🇸

Free tier unavailable in EU/UK/Switzerland. Free-tier prompts may be used by Google to improve products. ¹

Base URL: https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
Gemini 2.5 Flash	1M	65K	Text + Image + Audio + Video	10 RPM, 250 RPD
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	1M	65K	Text + Image + Audio + Video	15 RPM, 1,000 RPD

Mistral AI 🇫🇷

Free "Experiment" plan, no credit card. ~1B tokens/month.

Base URL: https://api.mistral.ai/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
Mistral Small 4	256K	256K	Text + Image + Code	~1 RPS, 500K TPM
Mistral Medium 3	128K	128K	Text	~1 RPS, 500K TPM
Mistral Large 3	256K	256K	Text	~1 RPS, 500K TPM
Mistral Nemo (12B)	128K	128K	Text	~1 RPS, 500K TPM
Codestral	256K	256K	Code	~1 RPS, 500K TPM
Pixtral Large	128K	128K	Text + Image	~1 RPS, 500K TPM

Z AI (Zhipu AI) 🇨🇳

Permanent free models, no credit card required.

Base URL: https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
GLM-4.7-Flash	200K	128K	Text	1 concurrent request
GLM-4.5-Flash	128K	~8K	Text	1 concurrent request
GLM-4.6V-Flash	128K	~4K	Text + Image	1 concurrent request

Inference providers

Third-party platforms that host open-weight models from various sources.

Cerebras 🇺🇸

Free tier, no credit card. Ultra-fast inference (~2,600 tok/s). 1M tokens/day cap.

Base URL: https://api.cerebras.ai/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
llama3.1-8b	128K (8K on free)	8K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD, 1M TPD
gpt-oss-120b	128K (8K on free)	8K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD, 1M TPD
qwen-3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507	131K (8K on free)	8K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD, 1M TPD
zai-glm-4.7	128K (8K on free)	8K	Text	10 RPM, 100 RPD, 1M TPD

Cloudflare Workers AI 🇺🇸

10,000 Neurons/day free. 50+ models available on free tier.

Base URL: https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast	131K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct-fp8-fast	131K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/meta/llama-3.2-11b-vision-instruct	131K	Shared w/ context	Text + Vision	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/meta/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct	Up to 10M	Shared w/ context	Multimodal	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/mistralai/mistral-small-3.1-24b-instruct	128K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it	256K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/qwen/qwq-32b	32K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
@cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1-distill-qwen-32b	32K	Shared w/ context	Text	10K neurons/day (shared)
+ 42 more models	Varies	Varies	Text, Image, Audio, Embeddings	10K neurons/day (shared)

GitHub Models 🇺🇸

Free prototyping for all GitHub users. 45+ models. Per-request limits (8K in / 4K out).

Base URL: https://models.inference.ai.azure.com

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
gpt-4.1	1M	32K	Text	10 RPM, 50 RPD
gpt-4.1-mini	1M	32K	Text	15 RPM, 150 RPD
gpt-4o	128K	16K	Text + Vision	10 RPM, 50 RPD
o3-mini	200K	100K	Text (reasoning)	10 RPM, 50 RPD
o4-mini	200K	100K	Text (reasoning)	10 RPM, 50 RPD
Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E	512K	~4K	Text + Vision	15 RPM, 150 RPD
Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E	256K	~4K	Text + Vision	10 RPM, 50 RPD
Meta-Llama-3.3-70B	131K	~4K	Text	15 RPM, 150 RPD
DeepSeek-R1	64K	8K	Text (reasoning)	15 RPM, 150 RPD
Mistral-Small-3.1	128K	~4K	Text + Vision	15 RPM, 150 RPD
+ 35 more models	Varies	Varies	Text / Image	Varies by tier

Groq 🇺🇸

Free tier, no credit card. Ultra-fast LPU inference. ²

Base URL: https://api.groq.com/openai/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
llama-3.3-70b-versatile	131K	32K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
llama-3.1-8b-instant	131K	131K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct	131K	8K	Text + Vision	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
llama-4-maverick-17b-128e-instruct	131K	8K	Text + Vision	15 RPM, 500 RPD
qwen3-32b	131K	131K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
gpt-oss-120b	131K	32K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
kimi-k2-instruct	262K	262K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
deepseek-r1-distill-70b	131K	8K	Text	30 RPM, 14,400 RPD
whisper-large-v3	—	—	Audio → Text	20 RPM, 2,000 RPD
whisper-large-v3-turbo	—	—	Audio → Text	20 RPM, 2,000 RPD

Hugging Face 🇺🇸

Free Serverless Inference API

Base URL: https://api-inference.huggingface.co/models

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct	128K	~4K	Text	~1,000 RPD
Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3	32K	~4K	Text	~1,000 RPD
Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1	32K	~4K	Text	~1,000 RPD
Phi-3.5-mini-instruct	128K	~4K	Text	~1,000 RPD
Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct	131K	~4K	Text	~1,000 RPD

Kilo Code 🇺🇸

Free models with no credit card required. kilo-auto/free auto-router routes to minimax/minimax-m2.5:free (80%) and stepfun/step-3.5-flash:free (20%). ³

Base URL: https://api.kilo.ai/api/gateway

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
bytedance-seed/dola-seed-2.0-pro:free	—	—	Text	~200 req/hr
x-ai/grok-code-fast-1:optimized:free	—	—	Text (code)	~200 req/hr
nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b:free	262K	32K	Text	~200 req/hr
arcee-ai/trinity-large-thinking:free	—	—	Text (reasoning)	~200 req/hr
openrouter/free	Varies	Varies	Text	~200 req/hr

LLM7.io 🇬🇧

Zero-friction API gateway. No registration needed for basic access. 30+ models.

Base URL: https://api.llm7.io/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
deepseek-r1-0528	—	—	Text (reasoning)	30 RPM (120 with token)
deepseek-v3-0324	—	—	Text	30 RPM (120 with token)
gemini-2.5-flash-lite	—	—	Text + Vision	30 RPM (120 with token)
gpt-4o-mini	—	—	Text + Vision	30 RPM (120 with token)
mistral-small-3.1-24b	32K	—	Text	30 RPM (120 with token)
qwen2.5-coder-32b	—	—	Text (code)	30 RPM (120 with token)
+ ~24 more models	Varies	Varies	Text	30 RPM (120 with token)

NVIDIA NIM 🇺🇸

Free with NVIDIA Developer Program membership. 100+ models. No daily token cap.

Base URL: https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1	128K	~163K	Text (reasoning)	~40 RPM
nvidia/llama-3.1-nemotron-ultra-253b-v1	128K	4K	Text	~40 RPM
nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b	262K	262K	Text	~40 RPM
nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b	128K	32K	Text	~40 RPM
meta/llama-3.1-405b-instruct	128K	4K	Text	~40 RPM
qwen/qwen2.5-72b-instruct	128K	8K	Text	~40 RPM
google/gemma-4-31b	128K	8K	Text	~40 RPM
mistralai/mistral-large-2-instruct	128K	4K	Text	~40 RPM
nvidia/nemotron-nano-2-vl	128K	8K	Vision + Text + Video	~40 RPM
minimax/minimax-m2.7	128K	8K	Text	~40 RPM
+ 90 more models	Varies	Varies	Text, Image, Video, Speech, Embeddings	~40 RPM

Ollama Cloud 🇺🇸

Free tier with qualitative usage limits. 400+ models from Ollama library. Not OpenAI SDK-compatible; uses Ollama API. ⁴

Base URL: https://api.ollama.com

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
llama3.1:cloud	128K	Model-dependent	Text	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)
deepseek-r1:cloud	128K	Model-dependent	Text (reasoning)	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)
qwen2.5:cloud	128K	Model-dependent	Text	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)
gemma2:cloud	8K	Model-dependent	Text	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)
mistral:cloud	32K	Model-dependent	Text	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)
+ 400 more models	Varies	Varies	Text	Session/weekly limits (unpublished)

OpenRouter 🇺🇸

35+ free models (marked with :free suffix). OpenAI SDK-compatible. ⁵

Base URL: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free	163K	~163K	Text (reasoning)	20 RPM, 200 RPD
deepseek/deepseek-chat-v3-0324:free	163K	163K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
qwen/qwen3.6-plus:free	1M	65K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
qwen/qwen3-coder-480b-a35b:free	262K	~32K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
meta-llama/llama-4-scout:free	10M	16K	Multimodal	20 RPM, 200 RPD
meta-llama/llama-4-maverick:free	1M	16K	Multimodal	20 RPM, 200 RPD
meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free	65K	~16K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
google/gemma-4-31b-it:free	256K	~8K	Multimodal	20 RPM, 200 RPD
nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b:free	1M	~32K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
openai/gpt-oss-120b:free	131K	131K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
minimax/minimax-m2.5:free	196K	8K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
mistralai/devstral-2512:free	256K	~32K	Text	20 RPM, 200 RPD
+ ~23 more free models	Varies	Varies	Text / Image	20 RPM, 200 RPD

SiliconFlow 🇨🇳

Free tier with 14 CNY signup credits. Permanently free models available.

Base URL: https://api.siliconflow.cn/v1

Model Name	Context	Max Output	Modality	Rate Limit
Qwen/Qwen3-8B	131K	131K	Text	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B	~33K	16K	Text (reasoning)	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-7B	131K	Configurable	Text (reasoning)	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
THUDM/glm-4-9b-chat	32K	32K	Text	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
THUDM/GLM-4.1V-9B-Thinking	66K	66K	Vision + Text	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR	—	8K	Vision (OCR)	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM
+ embedding/speech models	Varies	Varies	Embeddings, Speech	1,000 RPM, 50K TPM

Contributing

Know a free tier that's missing? Open a PR. Include the provider, endpoint, rate limits (link to their docs), and a few notable models. Trial credits and time-limited promos don't count.

Glossary

Abbreviation	Meaning
RPM	Requests per minute
RPD	Requests per day
TPM	Tokens per minute
TPD	Tokens per day
RPS	Requests per second

Notes

• All endpoints are OpenAI SDK-compatible unless noted.
• Each link points to the provider's API key page.

Footnotes

1. Free tier not available in the EU, UK, or Switzerland (available regions). ↩

2. Groq rate limits vary by model. Llama 4 Maverick is limited to 500 RPD. Most other models get 14,400 RPD (rate limits). ↩

3. Kilo Code free model list may change over time. nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b:free is for trial use only — prompts are logged by NVIDIA. Auto-router kilo-auto/free routes to minimax/minimax-m2.5:free (80%) and stepfun/step-3.5-flash:free (20%). ↩

4. Ollama Cloud measures usage by GPU time, not tokens or requests. Free tier described as "light usage" with session limits resetting every 5 hours and weekly limits every 7 days. Pro (50x more) and Max (250x more) plans available. Not OpenAI SDK-compatible; uses Ollama API. ↩

5. Free models default to 200 RPD. A one-time purchase of $10+ in credits unlocks 1,000 RPD for free models. OpenRouter also offers a Free Models Router (openrouter/free) and model fallbacks for chaining models in priority order. ↩